BRAND
Project
Summary
Made With
Creating a flapping great time in virtual reality
Starting as a game jam project, I led the concept, development, and launch of Kitty Hawk VR on Steam.
Duncan Iaria
Cassandra Trissler
Eric Monachello
Daniel Wilson
Henry Meredith
Duncan Yewell
Background
It all started as a jam
In 2017, a few of the team members at IDSI and I had a game jam to try to research and test out some of the capabilities on the new HTC Vive. I brainstormed app ideas with one of the developers, Duncan Iaria, and we decided with the limited timeframe of a game jam to go with the concept of a flappy bird in VR. I worked as the art director and 3d artist on the product during the jam. The product was extremely well received and I convinced leadership to publish the app on Steam. I worked with the development team to scale it and led the development and delivery onto the Steam platform post game jam.
BRAINSTORMING
WORK = PLAY
The weeks leading up to the game jam, Duncan Iaria and I sat down and brainstormed the idea of a VR Flappy Bird and how we could technically achieve the gameplay we were looking for. This opened up several challenges. Importantly, keeping a user engaged to constantly replay the game, similar to a mobile or multiplayer experience. We worked through an endless level concept with a quick respawn and simple intuitive controls (flapping your arms) to navigate the world.
Duncan ran some functional tests and we were able to get a proof of concept for the idea. I started working obstacle design, settling on a minecraft style 10x10 object in a grid. This allowed for non-developers to build obstacles in Unity, working with prefabs like lego blocks.
Development
Jammin til midnight
Once the jam started, we had 48 hours to take our proof of concept and turn it into reality. Before the team started building obstacles I wanted to define the art style. I wanted players to be transported as soon as they put on the goggles. I rapidly brainstormed a couple different concepts before it all clicked. An 80's retro-futuristic world.
With the art style defined, everything started to come together quickly. I started building assets and testing prefab layouts. Other team members started building prefabs and within a few hours we had over 50 created. I tasked a couple artists to create promo art and create the "player character." Being near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, we played off that idea and tied it all together.
Product Testing
Launching at Pixelfest
We completed the core gameplay and polished the game for the completion of the game jam. Pixelfest 2017 was upcoming, so we decided to use that as an opportunity for user testing. We had over 5,000 people test out the product over the course of the weekend, with the whole team logging tons of feedback. It was a blast to connect directly with users of all ages and took away a lot of gameplay ideas from the experience.
Riding our success
Following the success of Pixelfest, we showed Kitty Hawk at MAGLabs and MAGFest that same year. I used player interest to leverage leadership buy-in and we soon launched the product on Steam and have over 2,000 downloads.
